


The Man in the Mirror

by richmahogany



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Clothes, Gen, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/richmahogany/pseuds/richmahogany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harold goes shopping for a new suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fictive Kin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052834) by [LindaO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaO/pseuds/LindaO). 



> This was inspired by a scene in "Fictive Kin" by LindaO (see quote at the start), but it's completely independent, in fact it takes place many years earlier. I hereby ask her forgiveness for taking her idea and running with it. But I couldn't really help it, when I read the shopping chapter a plot bunny jumped out, grabbed me by the lapels and shook me until this story fell out.

_Harold watched Christine’s eyes in the mirror. He knew what she was seeing. He’d seen it once_

_before, in himself, the first time he’d seen put on a custom-tailored suit. Not bespoke, not then, but_

_the first suit he’d ever worn that actually fit him properly, perfectly. He’d look in the mirror and a_

_stranger had looked back at him. This is not who I am, he remembered thinking, but it is who I am becoming._

(from “Fictive Kin”)

 

Harold was sitting at his computer as usual, when Nathan came in, waving a piece of paper.

“Guess what, Harold!” he shouted.

Harold turned round to him and sighed.

“You know I hate guessing. What is it?”

“We have made our first million!” Nathan shouted even louder.

“Have we really?” Harold said.

“Oh come on, Harold, you could be a bit more excited about this!”

“I am excited, I just don’t express it by shouting and flapping sheets of paper.”

Nathan pulled a face and sat down in the chair next to Harold’s.

“Of course, when I say ‘we’, I mean the company. It’s not like we personally have become millionaires. Yet. Most of the money is going to be reinvested. But it does mean that we can pay ourselves a nice bonus. There’ll be a bit of extra money for everyone.” He waved the piece of paper again. “The figures aren’t absolutely finalized, but that’s not going to make much difference. I’ll present them to the board next week. We’ve made it, Harold!”

As excited as Nathan was, his announcement didn’t really make any difference to their day-to-day work. After a moment of satisfaction that things were going so well, Harold returned to his code, and had in fact almost forgotten about it until a few weeks later when a three-figure sum of money appeared in his account. And that’s when he started to think about what he would do with his windfall. Of course, he didn’t have to do anything. He could just keep the money in his account and let it accumulate interest. He could invest it and hopefully watch it grow into more money. But that’s what he usually did anyway. Somehow that didn’t seem right this time. Even though Nathan had complained about his lack of excitement, Harold felt that the first million for their company represented an important milestone. It seemed only appropriate that he should use his bonus to buy something that would somehow mark the occasion. But what?

About a week ago Nathan had announced something else.

“We’re going to have an end of year celebration for the board,” he had decreed, “and you” – pointing at Harold – “are going to be there. It’s bad enough that you insist on lurking in your cubicle on a daily basis. But these guys all know you, and if you don’t put in an appearance, there’s going to be questions. So don’t let me down. It’ll just be drinks and a two-minute speech from me, so it’s not gonna kill you.”

There was no arguing with Nathan, and Harold supposed that he had a point. So he decided that he would buy a new suit to wear for that occasion. A really nice suit this time.

It wasn’t that his regular suits were in any way objectionable. He’d stopped wearing cheap suits a long while ago, instead going for good quality and a decent fit, but they were still off-the-rack suits and didn’t fit quite as well as they might have done. This time he was going to go one better.

There was only one small problem: Harold didn’t really know where to go. He looked up a few addresses in a directory, and even walked past a few stores without going in, but couldn’t come to a decision. He didn’t have anyone to ask either. Well, he could have asked Nathan, but somehow he didn’t want to. He felt that this had to be his own private quest.

Finally, one day when he found himself downtown on a street which had several likely looking establishments, he decided it was time for action and plunged into the nearest one.

The little bell above the door tinkled as he opened it, and it tinkled again as it fell shut behind him. An eerie silence enveloped him. Outside the streets had been busy, noisy with the crowd of pre-Christmas shoppers and traffic, but nothing of that could be heard inside. That door must be very well insulated, Harold thought. He looked cautiously around when a middle-aged man, presumably the manager, approached him: “How can I help you, sir?”

Harold cleared his throat. “I need a suit,” he said, “it’s for a celebration at work. So, not evening wear, and it doesn’t have to be too formal, but it still needs to be suitable for the workplace.”

The manager gave him an ingratiating smile. “I’m sure we can find what you need,” he said, “Mr Collins will assist you. If you would step over here…”

Harold stepped where he was directed and was soon joined by Mr Collins. To his amusement Mr Collins had exactly the unctuous manner that his name suggested. Unfortunately he didn’t have much else. Harold surmised that Mr Collins, who was a spotty youth of not yet twenty, had not been in this trade very long, and the only help he was able to offer was to randomly fetch suits approximately in Harold’s size and pay a lot of insincere compliments regardless of how they looked on his customer. Harold resigned himself to the fact that he was on his own with this and hoped that he would somehow make the right choice.

An hour and ten suits later he still hadn’t found it. He had tried gray suits, black suits, suits in various shades of blue, among them even a particularly hideous powder blue creation, the latter more for completeness’ sake, not because he actually contemplated purchasing such an abomination. Some of the others had actually looked pretty good, and they would look even better with a few alterations, but somehow he just couldn’t decide in favor of one or another. He sighed and turned to the next three choices Mr Collins had haphazardly plucked from the racks. One of them caught his eye. It was a three-piece suit, dove gray with a pinstripe and shimmering pale blue lining. Three-piece suits were rarely seen these days, and in fact Harold didn’t like them very much. He thought them a bit pretentious. But there was something about this suit that attracted him. He took the jacket and held it against his body, then he did the same with the pants. The cut was different from most of the other suits as well. It was narrower than current fashion demanded, both in the shoulders and the pant legs. This store didn’t really cater to a high fashion clientele, but even so the style of most suits he had seen today was informed by the current vogue for double-breasted, wide-shouldered jackets and loose-fitting pants, with acres of extraneous fabric. This suit, however, didn’t bear obvious hallmarks of any particular fashion cycle. Harold guessed it would probably be called “out of date” or “timeless classic”, depending on your point of view. He was inclined to align himself with the “timeless classic” camp, but whether the suit lived up to its promise remained to be seen.

When Harold came out of the dressing room and stepped in front of the mirror, he was pleasantly surprised. The suit looked very good on him, the narrower cut sitting well on his slender frame. He had to admit that it didn’t look pretentious either. It looked…just right. Almost as if this was what he was meant to wear, but he had never known. It made him look taller as well. No, that wasn’t right, not taller, but somehow slightly more impressive. He took the jacket off, turned round and looked back to see the back of the vest. The blue silk echoed the color of his eyes. Maybe that’s what had unconsciously attracted him in the first place. Whatever it was, he had no doubt now: this was the suit for him.

When Mr Collins returned, bearing his latest offerings, Harold shook his head. “I’ll take this one,” he said decisively. The manager, who had obviously heard him, even though he had largely kept out of sight, reappeared.

“Of course, a few alterations will be necessary,” Harold continued.

“Of course,” the manager agreed. “I will send Mr Feyngold to you immediately.”

He disappeared again, and in his stead a tiny old man emerged from behind the scenes, bald apart from a few wisps of gray hair, and with twinkling brown eyes behind thick glasses. This had to be Mr Feyngold, the resident tailor. He smiled at Harold. “You have made your choice?” he asked in a high-pitched voice which held a trace of an Eastern European accent. Harold had to suppress a giggle, because the man irresistibly reminded him of Yoda, particularly since Mr Feyngold was now walking in circles around him, frowning instead of smiling, scrutinizing the suit and muttering “hmm, hmm” to himself. Suddenly he felt slightly uneasy. Despite having met the man only half a minute earlier, he found himself wanting Mr Feyngold’s approval. He wanted this suit, but he knew he would be disappointed if it failed to measure up to this man’s standards. Fortunately, when Mr Feyngold stopped circling, he was smiling again.

“A good choice,” he pronounced. He started to pinch and pull the fabric here and there, mumbling things like “a bit shorter here” and “a bit less here”. Harold watched in the mirror as tiny folds of cloth disappeared and reappeared. Mr Feyngold now produced a tape measure and checked the length of the sleeves, the width of the shoulders, and whipped it round Harold’s waist.

“You do a lot of sport?” he asked.

“Yes…no,” said Harold, surprised by the question. “Well, I run.”

Mr Feyngold gave a satisfied nod. “Young men these days,” he said, “they blow themselves up” – he raised his fists and inflated his cheeks to indicate the bulging muscles of a body builder – “but it is very difficult to make the suit fit. No balance, too big and too small at the same time. No harmony. But you make it easy for me.” He put in a last pin and stepped back to survey the effect. “Good. Now the pants. Please put your shoes back on.”

Harold did as he was told and watched as Mr Feyngold knelt to pin the pant legs at just the right length. When he was finished, Harold looked in the mirror once more. The alterations Mr Feyngold proposed to make were only indicated by the pins, but Harold could see that they would make a big difference. He was astonished that just taking away half an inch or less here and there could enhance the appearance of the suit so much. This suit would fit him like no suit had ever before.

Mr Feyngold now took the jacket away, put a few pins into the vest as well, and then his job was done. He said goodbye to Harold and disappeared into the back. Harold put his clothes back on and, after being told that he could pick up the suit in a week’s time, he left the store.

The little bell tinkled twice, and Harold stepped into the street. The noise hit him like a hammer. It had been so unnaturally quiet inside the store, it was as if he had been somewhere else completely and was now reentering reality. For a moment he wondered if he had visited one of those magic places that appear out of nowhere and then vanish as if they had never existed. Wasn’t it strange that all the time he was there, no other customer had entered? He shrugged. Since he had picked the store entirely at random, he had no way of knowing if they were popular or if business was going badly. It didn’t matter. He had found what he wanted.

During the following week Harold spent some time looking for a tie to wear with the new suit. Since the fabric was of a muted, neutral color, he could get away with something a bit more lively in the tie. He found it unexpectedly in a rather bohemian boutique which sold fairly traded arts and crafts from Third World countries. In passing by the window he had spotted a selection of batik silk ties, and he went in to have a closer look. Eventually he bought one in hues of orange and red, bright colors but soft, easy on the eye. He would take this tie with him when he picked up the suit, so he could quickly buy something else in case it didn’t match.

Of course the store was still there when Harold returned at the end of the week. He experienced the same effect, however, when he entered. The bell tinkled, the door closed behind him, and he might as well have been on a different planet, so thoroughly did it shut out the real world.

The manager recognized him, and before he could say anything, he was told that his suit was ready and that Mr Feyngold would bring it directly. If he would step over here to try it on?

Mr Feyngold appeared with the suit, and Harold went into the dressing room. This would be the moment of truth. Would the suit be as good as he thought, or was he about to find out that he had made a big mistake?

Harold came out and stepped in front of the mirror. He almost didn’t recognize himself. The suit fit the person in the mirror to perfection, but it couldn’t be him. Harold knew that he wasn’t very impressive or even particularly good-looking, but the man looking back at him had an undeniable presence. More than that: he had influence. He had power. His whole look proclaimed: “Do not underestimate me. I can do things that you never even dreamt were possible.”

Mr Feyngold appeared next to him, his smile inviting some sort of reaction from Harold.

Harold shook his head. “That isn’t me,” he said.

Mr Feyngold wagged his head. “Maybe not now. But it will be.”

Harold looked at him. “As in ‘clothes make the man’, you mean?”

Mr Feyngold wagged his head again. “They say that. But that is only half the truth. I will tell you something. A suit can’t give you anything you haven’t got in you already. Maybe these things are hidden, maybe they are in the future. But they are there. If you wear a suit that you were meant to wear, it doesn’t lie.”

“But how do I know that I was meant to wear this suit? Can’t you put on a suit to pretend that you are something you are not?”

“Of course you can. People do. But such a suit is telling a lie. And it will always look like a lie. It will look false. You can always recognize it. But look at yourself. Trust your feelings. Does this suit say anything that is untrue?”

Harold looked into the mirror again. Certainly the version of himself looking back at him appeared to be someone with influence and power, which he didn’t have. But wasn’t that what he was planning to achieve? Hadn’t Nathan and he decided that they wanted to change the world, back then during all those beer-fuelled discussions in their dorm room? And while reality worked somewhat differently from what they had imagined, they were still trying to do great things. They had realized that the world was changing, and they wanted to be among those who gave it its new shape. This was still the passion that spurred them on, this was what they were striving for. And the man in the mirror looked like he had the power to make it happen. Mr Feyngold was right. Harold could be that man.

He turned away to find Mr Feyngold smiling at him. “You see,” he said.

“Yes,” Harold answered, “I see. Thank you.”

Mr Feyngold now gave him another long, scrutinizing look. “Are you going to wear that tie?”

“Yes,” said Harold, “I was planning…”

Mr Feyngold lifted his hand: “Wait here.” He went to the other end of the store and looked for something on a display rack, then he disappeared behind the counter to continue his search there. Finally he came back, holding a pocket square. It was a solid color, a deep orange which picked up one of the shades in Harold’s tie, glowing like the embers of a fire. He folded the pocket square carefully and placed in the breast pocket. Then he gave Harold a little nudge towards the mirror.

“Yes?” he asked.

Harold took another look at his reflection. It was perfect. He had had no idea that a suit could make you feel like you were on top of the world, but that was what he was feeling right now. He took a deep breath and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “Oh yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story also owes something to the chapter in the first Harry Potter book in which he buys his wand. I liked the idea of a particular suit just waiting for Harold to come along, and for Harold to know as soon as he puts it on that this is the one for him.


End file.
